Our survey of U.S. public radio stations in 2010 found that 90% had news budgets under $1-million, and 70% spent less than $250-thousand on news.
The sample of 288 stations spent between $77-million and $168-million on public radio news programming.
As the chart shows, the single largest news budget bracket was $50K-$250K (37% of stations).
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| Answer Options | Response Percent | Response Count | |
| Less than $50,000 | 33.3% | 96 | |
| $50,000-$249,999 | 37.2% | 107 | |
| $250,000-$499,999 | 10.1% | 29 | |
| $500,000-$749,999 | 7.3% | 21 | |
| $750,000-$999,999 | 3.1% | 9 | |
| $1m-$2.49m | 5.2% | 15 | |
| $2.5m-$4.99m | 3.1% | 9 | |
| $5m-$7.49m | 0.7% | 2 | |
| answered question | 288 | ||
| skipped question | 13 | ||
Typically the lion’s share of spending in a newsroom is for personnel.
For illustration purposes, we multiplied the number of stations per bracket by the low and high end of the dollar ranges so we could see what the range of actual spending was for this sample. It showed actual spending between $77-million and $168-million.
Actual FY 2010 spending on local public radio news was between $77 and $168 million This chart shows how the overall spending on news is not carried out by the many stations at the lower dollar amounts. Rather, the lion’s share of news spending is generated by fewer stations in the larger brackets.
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